Title: Marilyn’s Chronicles: DoppelgangerAuthor:clair_de_luneCharacter: AbruzziGenre: GenRating: GWords: ~ 570Disclaimer: Not mine. Just borrowing them for a while.Summary: She thinks they look just alike.Notes: Thanks to torigates for her help with the translation.

Still, she thinks they look just alike. They have the same nonchalant gait, the same fake softness in the paw, the same ruse in the eyes. But really, her fur is neater: it’s her protection; she can’t afford to neglect it.

Sometimes, when she doesn’t feel like playing, she kills her preys quite quickly. Most of the time, though, she likes playing with them for long minutes before she eventually breaks their neck or cuts their throat with a skilful bite of her fangs. Mice, birds or even – when to her satisfaction she can catch them – rats haunting the sewers. It’s not cruelty on her part, it’s the natural order of the things; how could the natural order of the things be cruel? They have to learn who the cat is and, sincerely, it’s almost a warning for the others. It’s not her fault if there are always a few them who get caught because they tempt fate, thinking that the natural order can be inverted.

John reasons just like her as far as Humans are involved. Because when you think about it, he could have been way crueler with Michael to get what he wanted, or with Theodore who stood in his way. But he played a bit with them and let everybody else draw their conclusions. Because in the end, as Michael accurately put it, he’s John Abruzzi, John Abruzzi.

They have respect for each other. She doesn’t jump on his bunk when she gets in and her paws are dirty with mud. In return, he just strokes her back rather than trying to scratch her belly, and he merely lets dangle above her mouth the food he offers her instead of making her stand up on her back paws to catch it.

(She hates that, having to stand up on her back paws, she hates mimicking that human attitude. She does it every now and then for Fernando because he seems to like it so much, and she knows Fernando is not a bad guy... But generally, she just finds that revolting and humiliating.)

John and she hunt just the same way. On the lookout. Sometimes crouching down in a dark corner and sometimes lazily stretched out, eyes half closed but always trained on their prey, and they pounce at the last second, when their victim least expects it. Lying on a pillow, perched on the steps or sitting in a corner, her tail folded around her, she observes. Even learns things when studying him. Rrrr.

And they kill, literally or metaphorically, with the same inflexibility and lack of pity. But in the end, as long as he doesn’t pounce on Charles... she merely admires his work.

They have the same self respect and the same sharp awareness: they know their own value and their qualities; they know they’re here because they’ve been sacrificed; they know what they had to give up. John will be here until his death because he protected his Family, and she will be here until hers not to abandon Charles.

However, she thinks she may have more merit that John to stay here because honestly, unlike him, she could leave anytime. But she wouldn’t have Charles anymore if she did.

She thinks they look just alike, and she knows that he appreciates the compliment to his full value.

John and she hunt just the same way. On the lookout. Sometimes crouching down in a dark corner and sometimes lazily stretched out, eyes half closed but always trained on their prey, and they pounce at the last second, when their victim least expects it

And they kill, literally or metaphorically, with the same inflexibility and lack of pity

Such an accurate depiction of Abruzzi and I love the comparison to Marilyn. It's something I would never have considered, but as soon as I read this piece I went, yeah, Abruzzi really is like that.